The Breaking

Chapter Twenty-One

“So what now?” Cole asked.

Paige’s voice came through in a rush. While telling him the basics of what she’d learned, she’d been running down side streets and hopping fences from one backyard to another. She’d listened to his update without panting more than Cole after climbing too many stairs. “Now, we get our asses to another safe house and prepare to clean this city out. I need to mix up a batch of Half Breed bait to try and draw enough of those things away from here and give the locals a chance to get out.”

“Anything other than that? This sounds like some pretty big news.”

“I was kinda hoping to hear a good idea or two from you,” she said. “I hate to say that I’m out of my depth here, but …”

“Yeah,” Cole sighed. “Even with your Army buddies we may be out of our depth. Have you tried calling them again yet?”

“No,” she snapped. “I sent Rico to check them out and I’m leaving it at that. After what happened with you, Adderson deserves to deal with him. And what about your wolf girl?”

“We’re meeting her somewhere in New Mexico.”

“Jessup’s idea?”

“Yep.”

Although the rattling on her end of the phone had stopped, Paige’s breathing was getting heavier. “He’s kind of a hick, but that backwoods stuff of his may be what we need right now. Should keep you off anyone’s radar. Let me know what you come up with.”

“Will do.” Cole tapped the front of the phone, realized it wasn’t his own touch-screen beauty, and put the sparkling monstrosity away. The scenery flowing past him on the other side of the Ford’s window consisted of dusty rock and shrubs that were tough enough to survive the punishment doled out by a sun that only grew fiercer as it shone farther south of Chicago. “Why the hell is your window open?” he grunted.

“Because the fresh air feels good,” Jessup replied. “Don’t tell me you expect there to be AC blowin’ on your face no matter where you go. Besides, it’s a dry heat.”

“You know what else is dry heat? The middle of a freaking oven. Crank the AC.”

“So what’s Paige got to say?” Jessup asked without even looking at the control to raise his window.

She’d told him the highlights of what she’d gleaned from the conversation between Liam and Minh, so Cole relayed that to Jessup while staring out the window.

Finally, Jessup said, “No need to stare outside like a mooning hound. If that gal was around, we’d feel her.”

Cole’s scars weren’t burning and he couldn’t see Cecile anywhere outside. Still, he couldn’t quite get himself to lower his guard. “Are you sure she’s going to meet up with us?”

“If she wasn’t, there ain’t a lot we could do about it.” Since he wasn’t taking any comfort from that, Jessup added, “Sometimes you just gotta do your thing and have faith that whatever you set into motion before will keep on turning.”

“You think she heard anything I said about what Paige found?”

“They can sniff out quite a lot, but I don’t think it’s the same for hearing. At least, not for one as inexperienced as her, especially since she’d have to hear past this damn powerful engine to put any pieces together. I still can’t believe Paige heard all of that from two Full Bloods without them knowing she was there.”

“There was some sort of interference. She says it messed up a little bit of everything, including cell phones. Whatever it was, it distracted the Full Bloods long enough for them to have their meeting and leave before they noticed she was there. She got away and was still running when I talked to her.”

“I suppose that ain’t too surprising. Considering how everything’s been going, the Full Bloods don’t have to worry if we hear them talking or not.” When Cole stared at him, Jessup added, “Time to face up to it. We’re scrambling just to see another sunrise. The quicker we wrap our heads around that, the better. We’re almost in town, so I’d better tell you what I got in mind for when we get there. You do much hunting lately?”

“Do werewolves count?”

“You think I let that Full Blood girl run out on her own so we could get enough privacy to talk about hunting squirrel? Of course werewolves count! Have you been out hunting since the Mud Flu cleared up or not?”

“Actually, no,” Cole admitted. “We’ve been busy with the Lancroft business, the Nymar, and then I was locked up. The whole prison thing happened when I was hoping for some time to rest.”

“Typical Monkey’s Paw scenario.” Seeing the blank look on Cole’s face, Jessup scolded, “Don’t you ever read? ‘The Monkey’s Paw’ is a short story about making wishes. It’s this charm that grants ’em but turns them around to bite you in the ass through some loophole. You wish for a million dollars, it gives you a million that was stolen from some bank. You want time away from hunting, you wind up in prison.”

“Now I see why Cecile was so quick to get the hell away from you.”

“The reason I brought up hunting,” Jessup said without trying to disguise the sharpness in his voice, “is because it’s been getting mighty crazy out here. A lot of Skinners, me included, have been stumbling onto plenty of things that even we thought was bullshit or myth. Some of them were just laying low because of Half Breeds in the area. Just so you know, Half Breeds love the desert. Wide open spaces, plenty of room to run, folks living out in trailers or cabins that nobody’ll hardly miss.”

“Tons of little caves to use for dens?”

Jessup raised his eyebrows. “Very good. Most of the critters out here hid because they didn’t have what it took to survive a pack of Half Breeds. What’s so funny?”

“Did you just say critters?” Cole said through a persistent chuckle. “Why not just call them varmints, Yosemite Sam?”

“I can see why Paige likes you. Smartasses travel in packs. Anyway, after the Mud Flu cut the Half Breed population, the things that were hiding from them didn’t have to hide no more. What we’re after in Raton is something you ain’t gonna find in any Skinner journal. At least, not one from this century. I checked.”

When they passed a green sign on the side of the interstate that told them they were within ten miles of Raton, Jessup eased his foot off the gas and leaned forward to scan the horizon. “Cecile wants to hide and Randolph wants us to guard her, but we’re not playing this by any Full Blood’s rules. I sent her ahead to sniff out some Half Breeds in the desert. When she finds ’em, she’ll have to bring me a few of their hides in one piece so I can get a few of their sweat glands and mix up something that will make her smell like one of them and not a Full Blood.”

“Can we really make that?”

Jessup let out an exasperated sigh. “What the hell did Paige teach you, boy? Anyway, that won’t keep her busy for too long. She should find some Half Breeds, but bringing back pieces large enough to use will be tricky.”

“What if those things kill her?” Cole asked.

Stabbing a finger at Cole, Jessup said, “Just because that girl is scared and young, don’t forget what she is. She’s a Full Blood, so she can handle any Half Breeds. We also need to watch her to see if she’s setting us up for another fall. Understand me?”

Cole nodded, but hesitantly.

“When we get to town, you’ll follow my lead,” Jessup said. “You’ll just have to trust me on the rest because there ain’t time to tell you every little thing.”

“The hell there isn’t,” Cole said while opening the glove compartment and digging beneath the receipts, napkins, tire pressure gauges, and Handi Wipes to find a snub-nosed .38 revolver.

“How’d you know that was in there?”

“Skinners are more likely to have one of these in the glove compartment than they are a pink slip.”

“So you know all about us, huh?” Jessup asked. “If you know so damn much, you should know there aren’t a lot of us left out here and that we have to stick together no matter how badly we got along before. Oh yeah,” he added when he saw the expression that drifted across Cole’s face. “I remember what a dick you were to me in Philly.”

“Actually, I remember you as the dick.”

“We need to put that aside. More importantly, you need to put that gun aside.”

Cole tossed the revolver back into the glove compartment and slapped the little folding door shut. “There. Now since I’m willing to go along with you, the least you can do is show me the same respect and tell me what the hell you’re dragging me into. If you can’t trust me that far, then I might as well get out of this truck right now.”

“All right. But first I need you to tell me somethin’.” Placing his hands on the steering wheel at ten and two, Jessup turned to point a cockeyed stare at Cole when he asked, “Ever seen a gargoyle?”

The road circling around Mt. Calvary Cemetery ran straight along the eastern border of a burial ground surrounded on all sides by a cement wall that angled steeply up or down to accommodate the natural flow of the terrain. Naked trees scattered among dry scrub, making the barren stretch of land look as if it had been scooped straight from the desert. Unlike the lonely outside of town, this one’s graves were marked.

Jessup parked on the northern edge of the cemetery on Hillside Road. From there he led Cole around the perimeter of the cemetery like a Scout leader taking his troop on a tour of the Grand Canyon. “See there?” he said while waving his hand to a chipped stone statue erected on the cement barrier.

As he had with all the other statues he was shown, Cole nodded. “Yeah. I see it. It’s a statue of a dog.”

“What about that one?”

A few yards away from the knee-high statue of Man’s Best Friend, there was another, much larger, statue. Those two were part of a collection were set up around the cemetery that included a few wolves and one old man whose features had been worn away by the elements. Examining the next one Jessup pointed out, Cole could only find a few hastily spray-painted words on the side of the sculpture. “It’s a horse. So what?”

“So what? Take a look at those up there. Don’t they strike you as peculiar?”

He looked at the row of statues scattered unevenly near the wall. The cement barrier was barely as tall as he was and seemed to be there not so much for decoration as to keep drunk drivers from interrupting the peaceful slumber of residents interred on the other side. While they weren’t exactly works of art, the statues on the wall itself were of birds, and one winged creatures that had enough detail for Cole to make out ridges of skin above the claws it used to grip its perch. One wing was outstretched and the other was partially folded against its back. Its eyes were blank. A stumpy beak was partially open to reveal poorly chiseled teeth.

“It does seem kinda weird that these would be here at all,” he said. “There aren’t any other decorations that I can see.”

“Very good. Always trust your instinct. You’re a Skinner. If something feels off-kilter to you, it probably is.”

“You’ve never been to Chicago, have you? The off-kilter alarm has to be shut off sometimes.”

“Don’t let the twang in my voice fool you, son. I’ve been to plenty of places, and when it comes to hunting the things we do, chasing them in the cities is easy. Never gets too dark. Out here,” Jessup said as he placed a hand on the wall and let his eyes wander upward, “once the sun goes down, it’s just you and the stars.”

“I’ve been in the dark too,” Cole said. “Are you going to tell me what I should be looking for or do we wait until Frank and Lambert get here?”

Ignoring that, the older Skinner approached the horse statue, looked it over for less than a second and slapped its flank. “See this here? No artistic value. I’m not going to say that every gargoyle on every rooftop is somethin’ special, but take a look at this one. First of all, the placement. Gargoyles on buildings mean all sorts of things, from good luck to keeping bad spirits away. Those are usually up high and made to look nice or scary or whatnot. Like, for example, that one there,” he added, waving at the stone creature on the wall with the birds. Turning his attention back to the spray-painted horse, he said, “These others aren’t anywhere near a roof. There aren’t any other decorative type things about. Even the wall looks like it took all of two minutes to build. Second, the way it’s standing. Decorations are made to look nice. See how the muscles on this one’s back are all swollen and straining?”

“Look at the eyes. It looks scared.”

“Very good! Now touch it.”

Cole looked closer and reached out to tap a finger against the spot on the statue’s back that Jessup was staring at. It felt like rock.

Since Cole wasn’t impressed yet, Jessup led him to the next statue. “See the way that dog is cringing? And that crow’s obviously squawking at something.”

At the third and forth gargoyles, Jessup pointed out how some layers of rock were thicker than others in similar spots on each sculpture’s chest and ribs. They’d gone all the way back to the horse when he proudly said, “But this is the best one of them all! This is why I parked here, so you could see this one for sure. You would’ve scored big-time bonus points if you would’ve spotted this on yer own, but we’ll see.”

“Bonus points?”

“Yeah. You’re a video game guy, right?”

At first only Stu seemed to know about his former life in Seattle. Slowly but surely, ever since he and Paige had monitored the comings and goings at Lancroft’s old house in Philadelphia, more Skinners got hold of that bit of news. Needless to say, a bunch of gun-toting monster hunters weren’t impressed with the multiplayer maps of Hammer Strike ’s lava level.

“Okay, I’ll skip the bonus points,” Cole said. “Just tell me what the hell I’m supposed to be looking at.”

Jessup stepped up to the statue as if sneaking up on a sleeping cat. Pointing to its ribs, he asked, “See these scratches here and here?”

Cole didn’t step right up to the statue because a car was approaching from Hillside. Already imagining how bad it looked to have the two of them lurking outside a cemetery to size up its statuary, he kept his distance and waited for the car to turn north and head farther into town.

“Stop being so squirrelly,” Jessup scolded. “Look at these scratches. It’s important.”

“More important than a Full Blood charging into town in a matter of minutes?”

“Could be.”

The scratches in question were right beneath Jessup’s finger. “Let me guess,” Cole grunted. “No artistic value?”

For the first time since he’d met Jessup, the grizzled Skinner looked genuinely impressed with him. “That’s right! There ain’t no chips along the edges and the texture is smooth, which means the scratches are part of the statue and not just wear and tear. They’re in the wrong spot and go in the wrong direction to have been made by anything flying off the road. That, combined with these thick patches along the sides and back, tell me there are real gargoyles here!”

“And how did you know these statues were here at all?”

“Spotted ’em while passing through town a few months ago,” Jessup told him. “Gotta keep yer eyes open for this sort of thing.”

“How slow do you drive?”

“See, here’s the tricky thing with gargoyles,” Jessup said without paying any mind to Cole’s sarcasm. “It’s the same tricky thing that has to do with a lot of the smaller beasties that have been surfacing lately. Since things like these have been hidden away or sleeping or whatever the hell else, Skinners haven’t seen them for years. And,” he added just as Cole opened his mouth to hurry him along, “since these things ain’t bloodsuckers or shapeshifters, there’s no way for most Skinners to feel them in their scars anymore.”

“So Skinners have seen gargoyles before?”

“Gargoyles were mentioned in almost every Skinner journal from the 1750s all the way through the 1800s. That’s when a Full Blood claimed this whole continent and drove ’em underground. I spotted the first one for myself when I was scouring graveyards for more Half Breed dens or Shunkaws. Did some research and now I’m spotting them all over.”

Pulling open his vest, Jessup revealed a harness that might have started off as a shoulder holster but had been modified to carry two wooden clubs that were each just under a foot long. He pulled one out by the handle, using the tips of his fingers to avoid the thorns. “Shapeshifters and Nymar are the most common things out there. Wasn’t always like that, though. Full Blood’s closin’ in.”

“I know. I can feel her.”

“Can you feel the Squam?”

“No,” Cole said warily. “Can you?”

When Jessup tossed him one of the clubs, Cole reflexively snatched it from the air. The thorns bit into him, sinking like needles through the toughened skin of his palm. As soon as the little spikes touched his blood, something else flowed through the scars. It was a cold tingle that felt as if he’d accidentally gotten window cleaner into his blood.

“Journals talk about there being lots more than what we see nowadays,” Jessup continued. “Skinners had to adapt. Their methods were more or less the same as they are now, but were a bit more flexible. Whenever they found something new, they’d take some of its blood and add it to the mix used for the varnish on their weapons. It’s a practice that’s been phased out lately just because there hasn’t been much need for it. Old-timers like me passed along the methods for modifying the varnish even when the young ones only wanted to fight what they could see.”

The Full Blood was getting closer. Cole figured he didn’t have to say as much to another Skinner, so he nervously glanced toward the edge of town, where he guessed Cecile might be approaching. Then something else came along to add itself to the growing burn caused by the werewolf. The chill beneath his scars spread like a layer of slush sandwiched somewhere in between the heat from the varnish and the warmth of his own body.

“Feel it yet?” Jessup asked.

“I think so.”

“That cold is from the sample of gargoyle blood I scraped up when I found the first one a few weeks ago. It’ll only last a while after you switch back to your own weapon, so we’ll have to modify that one too. Didn’t you carry a spear back in Philly?”

“Yeah. Mind if I use this until I get it back?”

“Sure, just don’t get too jumpy.”

Cole’s entire hand started to shake. Everything from cold to heat and every gradient in between rushed through his fist. “I think something’s wrong. Feels like I’m allergic to this one or something.”

“Told you not to get jumpy. I’ve scraped up all kinds of new blood and added it to the varnish on that club. You need to get used to it. Finding that first gargoyle was a lucky stroke. They must’ve either been getting too cocky, frightened, or hungry to worry about staying hid any longer. I didn’t know what the hell it was at first until a bunch of them damn near got me. Faster than you’d ever think. That’s one of the things that keeps ’em from being noticed. They’ll jump out and take yer head off before you even knew what was happening.”

“Shit,” Cole said as he hopped away from the statue. “You might want to open with that the next time you give a lesson in gargoyles.”

“Relax. That thing’s not gonna hurt you.”

The burning in Cole’s scars grew hotter, but not quickly. Cecile was either circling the town or trying to approach without being seen.

Jessup stepped up to the statue and ran his fingertips along the smooth patch on the horse’s back. “See, gargoyles are lurkers. They can hide damn near anywhere and you won’t ever find them unless you know exactly where to look. Just because you see a sculpture that looks creepy don’t make it a gargoyle.”

“This cold in my scars tells me they’re here, right?”

“Yep.” Drawing a hunting knife from a scabbard hanging from his belt, Jessup drove the tip into the smooth patch of rock along the horse’s back and started chipping it away. “But the tricky thing is that they’re damn near impossible to chase, so you gotta make them come to you. Can you guess the one thing a gargoyle don’t like more than anything else in the world?”

The club in Cole’s hand grew into a short stake before the bottom end extended and split into something that resembled a thick forked tongue. Not even noticing that he’d instinctually created a smaller version of his spear, he circled around to get behind the statue and said, “I would imagine they hate it when someone comes along to jam a knife in their back.”

“Well, yeah, but remember what I said about them bein’ lurkers. What every lurker wants is to hide and lurk in peace. What they hate is when someone knows they’re there. And this stuff right here,” he said, after the tip of his blade chipped off a piece of the statue that fell away like a small section of eggshell, “is one of the things that lets them know they’ve been found out.”

Cole tightened his grip on the club. His eyes were fixed upon the statue, waiting for it to move or balk at getting a piece of its back torn off. When that didn’t happen, he inched in for a closer look at the damage Jessup had done. Whatever the thing was, it sure as hell wasn’t a statue. Beneath the chipped portion was leathery muscle covered in a slimy layer of thick, pungent slime.

“Aw shit,” Cole grunted as the putrid smell of rotten meat and spoiled rust hit him. “That’s blood, all right.”

“It sure is. What’d you expect?”

The burning in his scars was growing, but not quick enough to mean that Cecile was on her way to the cemetery using anything close to a direct route. In the distance to the north, the sound of screeching tires, honking horns, and shouting voices rolled through the air.

“God damn it,” Cole said while bringing the club up to a defensive position. “You think she found Frank? What if she lost control and took out some locals?”

“She could’ve done that with or without us lookin’ after her,” Jessup mused. When a whistling shriek drifted overhead, he didn’t even bother looking up.

“What the hell was that?” Cole asked.

“Just stand still and wait for them.”

Cole wished he had the gun from Jessup’s glove compartment. As the screeching came again, it raked all the way through his body.

The chipped statue was bleeding.

Shrieking came from several different angles in the sky. Sunlight was fading into a dull glow that gave the other statues an aura.

“I think that one just moved!” Cole said, pointing the club at a nearby dog statue.

“No it didn’t.”

The shrieking grew louder.

“What is that crap you dug out of that thing’s back, Jessup? Is that gargoyle going to wake up or not?”

“Shut up! I told you we need to wait for them. They won’t come if we’re looking for them.”

“Spare me the predator prey bullshit and just tell me what the fuck these statues are supposed to do for us!”

“Shut up so I can listen, dammit,” Jessup barked.

“Are there more cemeteries around here?” Cole asked. “Or churches? Where else do you find gargoyle perches? Just tell me what I need to know!”

“What the hell is wrong with you, Cole?”

Cole’s blood surged through his veins in a sporadic mix of fast and slow rhythms. It pumped in time to his heartbeat at first, but the longer he paid attention to it, the more he realized it was moving at a pace all its own. His first thought drifted to the tendrils still wrapped around his insides, and when he looked down, he realized he was pointing the sharpened end of the club at Jessup.

The older man’s eyes were locked on Cole when he asked, “Are you strung out?”

Even with the world going to hell and what sounded like a war encroaching on the outskirts of town, Cole was surprised by the question. “I’m not on drugs!” he said.

“I don’t mean drugs. I mean the healing serum. How much have you been taking?”

“A lot lately, but I’ve been wounded.”

“What about before you were wounded? Did you take it any time you got hurt even if you didn’t absolutely need it?” Jessup’s eyes narrowed and he moved toward him and a distant howling gave way to a shriek that became louder and more intense. “Have you reached for a needle even before you knew how badly you were hurt? When you get cut or scraped or knocked around, do you look forward to that light-headed rush that comes with—”

“I’m not a fucking junkie!” Cole snapped.

“You didn’t answer my questions.”

“I’ve got a question for you,” he said while moving the club as if trying to pass it off as something other than a weapon. “What’s that screeching? It’s coming from everywhere.”

“No it isn’t,” Jessup replied while closing his eyes. “That noise is today’s biggest lesson. You wanna know another lesson I learned a long time ago? Don’t work with someone who’s strung out on anything, even if it’s something we cooked up ourselves.”

“I haven’t even had any of that stuff for a while.”

“Which is probably why you were about to stab me a few seconds ago. Now close your eyes and listen for that screech. We need to know what direction it’s coming from.”

The sky was growing darker by the second. When Cole looked to the east, he saw a blur of clouds and dark purple. Looking to the west forced him to squint before catching a jabbing ray of sunlight in his eyes. “It’s getting closer, whatever it is. Do you know what it is?”

“Shush up and listen,” Jessup scolded. “And close yer eyes. It’ll help you focus.”

Cole did as he was told. The stench of rotting meat and blood was still thick in his nose, and the frantic beats of his heart showed up as pulsing blobs of light behind his eyelids. Before that became too much for him, he heard something else with his newly focused ears. The shriek started off as just one of the many that crossed back and forth above him. When something screamed directly toward him, there was no way in hell he could keep his eyes closed.

A large flap of skin sliced through the air, attached to a frame of narrow bone. It was thin enough to glide and light enough to be steered by what looked like fluttering ribbons trailing behind it. Long talons stretched from the skin flap’s two front corners as it extended even more to ride a wind that rippled over its back and through its body, which produced the shriek Cole had been hearing.

As the thing in the sky angled sharply downward toward Jessup’s back, several more of the narrow fliers descended like pencil lines that suddenly decided to leap off a page. They were right behind the first one, filling Cole’s eyes with sunlight reflecting off smooth undulating backs and filling his ears with a shriek that now sounded more like a whistle blown with the power of a concentrated hurricane.

The closest one opened its body into a tattered flag with four talons at either end. Without opening his eyes, Jessup drew the hunting knife from its scabbard to snap it up and around toward the incoming mass of skin. Between his confident swing and the creature’s own momentum, the blade cut through the upper framework of bone and shredded the flying thing’s body all the way down to the tattered pieces hanging from its lower end. Its shriek turned into an agonized cry as pieces of its body fell to the ground. The others still in the air veered off before getting close enough to fall victim to the Skinner’s blade.

Opening his eyes, Jessup flicked the knife down to spatter a clear, viscous fluid onto the ground and said, “It’s all in the wrist.”